RMeS Workshop: Academic Peer Review and the Art of Constructive Feedback
Date: Thursday 27 February 2025, 15.15-17.00
Location: Utrecht University, Janskerkhof 2-3 – room 1.11
For: First and second year RMa students in Media Studies, who are a member of a Dutch Graduate Research School
ECTS: 1 EC
Organizers: Susanne Knittel (Utrecht University) & the RMes PhD Council
Registration: VIA THIS LINK
Sign-up deadline: 7 February 23:59! Please note we have room for max. 18 participants; priority will be given to RMeS members.
Peer review is one of the cornerstones of modern academia, an essential service that every academic will at some point be asked to perform. Most students will already be familiar with the practice of giving peer feedback, but how does ‘real’ academic peer review work? What is the purpose of a peer reviewer, and what is not? What happens to a review once it has been submitted? What makes a good peer review? And how do you avoid becoming the much-maligned ‘Reviewer #2’? In this workshop, we will address these questions and more.
The goal of the workshop is to introduce students to the process of academic peer review and to stimulate critical reflection on how to do peer review with care and collegiality. We will ask participants to send in a sample of their own written work (preferably a course paper of ca. 3000-4000 words, NOT a work in progress!) and to review two submissions by other participants in accordance with a professional peer review form before the day of the workshop. Further instructions for this procedure will be provided to participants shortly after the sign-up period has ended.
The workshop itself will consist of two main parts. First, dr. Susanne Knittel will provide an introduction to the world of peer review and give some tips on how to conduct peer review in an ethical manner. Second, the participants will be asked to discuss the peer reviews they have received with the participants who wrote them. These discussions will focus mainly on the form of the reviews and on the participants’ reception of the feedback. The workshop organizers will be present throughout the session to facilitate the discussions and to answer questions. Finally, we will conclude with some plenary takeaways from the session.
After the workshop, the participants will be asked to submit a short reflection on the review process informed by assigned literature and their experience in the form of a ‘response to reviewers’ (ca. 500 words) in order to obtain 1 EC.”This assignment will be graded as a pass/fail and should be sent to the organizers before Thursday 13 March 23:59!
Schedule:
15.15-15.20: Welcome and introduction by organizers
15.20-15.50: Susanne Knittel on peer review + Q&A
15.50-16.00: Break
16.00-16.45: Discussions in peer review groups
16.45-17.00: Plenary conclusions and takeaways
17.00-onward: Drinks @ Hofman (Janskerkhof 17A, Utrecht)
Susanne C. Knittel is Associate Professor of Comparative Literature at Utrecht University. She holds a PhD in Italian and Comparative Literature from Columbia University, New York (2011). Her research centres on the question of how societies remember atrocities — specifically how they deal with the uncomfortable issues of guilt and responsibility — and what role literature, art, film, and other cultural representations play in this process. She is editor-in-chief of the peer-reviewed open access Journal of Perpetrator Research, which she co-founded in 2017 with Emiliano Perra and Ugur Ümit Üngör.
